Home Care Packages

What are Home Care Packages?

Home Care Packages include a range of co-ordinated home care and support services that are tailored to meet the individual needs of eligible people who wish to remain in their own homes but need ongoing support to do so. . The Australian government provides a subsidy to approved service providers to coordinate/facilitate these services.

Packages are flexible and may include assistance with aide range of activities including: personal hygiene and dressing, domestic tasks, preparing meals, shopping, transport, gardening and social support, provision of aids and equipment, nursing care, allied health services such as Podiatry, Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Physiotherapy and Speech Pathology.

Consumer Directed Care (CDC)

All Home Care Packages are delivered on a CDC basis.

The aim of Consumer Directed Care is to give people receiving services and support a greater say about the types of care and services they access, who provides them, when and where they are provided and how long they continue..

Under a CDC approach, consumers are encouraged by the service provider to identify goals, which could include building or maintaining independence, improving their health or “wellness” and ‘re-ablement’ (assistance with regaining function or finding different ways of performing tasks of daily living). The consumer’s goals will form the basis of the Home Care Agreement and Service Plan. The consumer decides the level of involvement they wish to have in managing their package.

The CDC model also provides each person receiving a Home Care Package (or someone they nominate) with regular detailed information about the amount of money available for their package, and about how much each of the services or supports costs. This helps to enable CDC consumers to design and flex their services within the “budget” that is available to them.